Fit Girls gives Marblehead girls health, heart & confidence

Monday

Leigh Blander is a Fit Girls volunteer and is participating in the program for the first time with her fourth grade daughter, Molly.

Sadie Newburg is running a trail with her Fit Girl teammates, and slows down to encourage a friend who is lagging behind.

“Teamwork is important,” said Sadie, who is 9 years old. “If you need to slow down, the other girls in your group will, too. They always have your back.”

Fit Girls is a popular running program for fourth, fifth and sixth grade girls that builds self-esteem and confidence, and helps girls connect and give back to their community. After starting on the South Shore in 2002, the program came to Marblehead in 2012.

“Sadie could only run about 100 yards at first, and now she’s running much farther without stopping,” said Fit Girls President Jennie Sheridan. “She has the best attitude. She tells us, ‘I’m trying to make myself healthier.’”

Brenna Hamilton, 10, is another success story this fall.

“I can run even farther every week and that’s cool. I feel stronger and I feel like I’m part of a team,” Hamilton said.

Fit Girls consists of non-competitive workouts designed to gradually and safely build endurance to run or walk a 5K (3.1 miles) race. At the end of the six-week course, girls will compete in the Full Hearts 5K in Marblehead on Sunday, Nov. 12, with a portion of money raised going to Sophia Smith, a Fit Girl in sixth grade who has brain cancer.

“My favorite thing is watching the girls cross the finish line,” said Sheridan. “After ups and downs throughout the season, the look of pride and satisfaction on their faces is inspiring… especially those kids who thought they could never accomplish something like this.”

In addition to running, the Fit Girls curriculum includes lessons on teamwork, confidence and community service. Early in the course, the girls, broken into teams based on their “just right pace,” work together to choose team names. They then identify their team values and design a poster that exemplifies those virtues.

“It makes girls more confident about themselves,” said Sydney Hamilton, a sixth grader who is doing her third year of Fit Girls. “Working with other girls, everyone does their own part, but we help each other with our projects. It makes us all better.”

Kindness Rocks

Another important project this fall involves Marblehead Rocks Kindness, a grassroots movement in town where people decorate beach rocks with inspirational images and messages and leave them around Marblehead for others to find.

Fit Girls members each designed their own rock and will drop them in special spots around town. Some of the messages: Time for Kindness, Be Unique, Be Kind, and Live, Love & Laugh.

Volunteer Hadley MacLean, who is leading the Marblehead Rocks Kindness project at Fit Girls, says it teaches kids that kindness is contagious.

“One simple rock that they lovingly paint can make such a difference to some anonymous person. In a time when there is such hatred, sadness and intolerance in our world, it's refreshing to see these kids working together so enthusiastically to spread joy,” said MacLean, a mother-of-four who lost her husband this year.

“And it dovetails so incredibly well with Fit Girls,” she added. “Here is a group that has been created to build girls up, to give them confidence in themselves, and to see each other as allies and supporters. The message is that we are better together, stronger for being a part of a supportive group. You don’t need to be the best of the group - just your best self while helping others achieve that same goal.”

Fit Girls… For Boys?

Fit Girls is run completely by volunteers and relies on several volunteer coaches, including Barbara Tanger. Her daughter, Talia, has done Fit Girls for two years.

“I wanted to do something with her,” said Barbara. “I love the spirit of the program… empowering girls with a healthy body, healthy mind, healthy heart. It teaches about being a good friend, speaking out for yourself, and about community service.”

Talia looks forward to Fit Girls every Tuesday and Thursday.

“I like how we can stay at our own pace, that there’s not too much pressure, and we get better each week. Last year, I liked how at the 5K everyone was cheering each other on at the finish line.”

“It’s truly the highlight of her week -- and mine,” Barbara added.

The original six Fit Girl organizers in Marblehead still coach. Along with Sheridan, there’s Sara Thatcher, Lisa Sugarman, Annie Madden, Mandy Murphy and Jenni Clock. They also run the national Fit Girls organization, which has about 80 franchises. The previous organizers didn’t keep track, so it’s hard to know the exact number, Sheridan said.

“We’re reworking the curriculum, experimenting with different things. We want to get more involved in outreach,” she said.

Locally, Sheridan and her team are looking at branching out to different populations.

“We’ve gotten requests for a boys program, and maybe a Fit Girls at the high school for students who aren’t competitive athletes, but still want the camaraderie and fitness component.”

For Sadie, her first year at Fit Girls has really made a difference -- in her fitness and in how she sees herself.

“I’m definitely proving to myself that I can do things I didn’t think I could do,” she said.

The community is invited to participate in the Full Hearts 5K. For more information, go to http://www.northshoretimingonline.com/reglive2017.aspx?eventyear_id=1418